Why private talk on Hanover's public library?

So what's the deep dark terrible secret over at Guthrie Memorial Library - Hanover's Public Library?

Maybe there really isn't something awful going on behind closed doors in Hanover, but you can't blame people for asking the question when public officials stay in the shadows.

Wednesday night, the Borough Council met in what it called a "closed caucus" to discuss what one member later described as "creative ways" to ease the library burden on borough taxpayers. Trouble is, those citizens weren't invited. Borough officials have since explained they also had personnel matters to discuss, but then went on to kick around a few harmless library ideas.

So what's the secret? Maybe some of these taxpayer folks have creative ideas of their own that they'd like to share about the library. It's still Hanover's public library, officially anyway, according to the sign out front.

The day after the meeting, our borough reporter spent time with municipal officials hearing all sorts of library maintenance woes. Never a deep dark secret, apparently. It's just that whenever the borough talks about these things, no one else happens to be around. Or there isn't a quorum, so technically it's not a public meeting.

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The Pennsylvania open-meeting law makes gatherings of public officials presumptively open to the public. There are some reasonable exceptions - personnel matters raising legitimate privacy concerns and discussion of ongoing or pending litigation, for example. But officials have the burden of proof in court when it comes to closing public meetings.

The trouble with reasonable exceptions is their application by unreasonable officials. No one wins in an access lawsuit because the taxpayers end up paying the bill. And the information stays secret while the lawyers fight it out.

The Evening Sun first learned of this meeting from anonymous sources who told us there was some secret plan to close the library. That seems far-fetched on its face, but it is exactly the kind of speculation that thrives when public officials do the public's business in private.

Thinking about a new coffee bar or dining room in the library? Great! Let's talk about it in the open, make sure the deal is a good one and move forward, without all the talk of business-as-usual backroom deals.
Let's ask the community for its support and ideas, instead of pretending council knows best and we need not concern ourselves until everything is a done deal. Because then it's only natural to ask, "Done where?"

There have been signs these last couple of years of a new openness in Hanover government, a sense that we can't keep doing business the old way and expect to survive in a new world. That kind of high-handed indifference to what the public might think breeds cynicism in the citizenry and discourages public participation.

And that's not the way it is supposed to work in a democracy. That's what the Founding Fathers, said, anyway. Quick, read all about them at your public library - while there's still time.